Stranger Than Kindness
by Ashblake
Summary: Severus forces Sirius to confess his darkest secret. He confirms what he already knew. However, hatred and passion ensues when both men refuse to abandon their pride and follow their true desires. SLASH.


Stranger Than Kindness  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
Setting: During the 'second reign of Voldemort.' Relatively, it is Harry's 7th Year although Hogwarts has been disbanded due to war cautions.  
  
Pairings: Severus/Sirius, Remus/Severus  
  
Warning: Slash, bad language, violence and some sexual content in upcoming chapters.   
  
***  
  
  
"It's just you and me and I don't trust you for the life of me!" He spat, pointing his wand threateningly at the other man.   
  
"Hah! What does it matter to you? My innocence is insubstantial to a slimy bastard like you! You're pathetic! You blind yourself to the truth just like everyone else!"  
  
"Be quiet!"  
  
"Why? I have nothing to protect me. No wand. Even my knife was taken! I have only my bare fists, Severus and still my flesh is too weak to even beat a pathetic worm like you!" he laughed, a beautifully scorning laugh that was filled with his untamable, though saddened, defiance. "No, Severus! You may as well kill me now! It's what you've always wanted. Why should I stop you from failing now? You have me, you fucking git! You have me down on knees and knuckles, bleeding and bruised, strapped in your power! C'mon, you fuck! Show me your worst! Show me the fucking Crucio that you twisted little kids with all those years ago! Show me the Imperio! Fucking rape me for all I care! Show me what a good man, you are Severus! Since duty calls for it, show me what a fucking good man you are!"  
  
Severus curled his upper lip and growled deep and passionately from the fathoms of his tempestuous soul. His arm outstretched, his victim in place, he muttered a small charm and at once snake like cords burst from the end of his wand and coiled round Sirius's torso. He thudded to the ground and winced with pain. Bruised, supple creature, how bruised he'd be the next morning if he survived this. He curled, rubbing his left temple against the blood from his head and whimpered.   
  
"Merlin! So is this how you want it! I can't even fight and here you are to humiliate me more! You're twisted, evil, pathetic..."   
  
"Shut up!" Severus seethed, "You have one more chance to redeem yourself! I will administer a few drops of Veritaserum and discover why you were with the death eaters at that night."  
  
Sirius jolted with fear and hatred instead of complying as Severus had hoped.  
  
"I'd rather die before you give me that poison! I have told you all I could!"  
  
"Stay still." Snape snapped testily.   
  
He retrieved a small crystal vial from his velvet, robe pocket and swept to Sirius's side, his robes swishing behind him. Sirius writhed like a passionate serpent, hissing and biting contemptuously at his oppressor.   
  
"Hold still... Else I'll clamp your jaw open with a steel hook."  
  
Tied and restrained, Severus snatched Sirius's sweat, soaked head of hair and jerked it up to face him. Flicking off the cork of the vial, he jammed the contents into his prisoner's narrow mouth. Sirius gasped, chest heaving and spluttered gracelessly around him before falling limp and supine like a lifeless rag doll.  
  
Severus knelt down and wiped away the long black hair from his prisoner's palent face. He tapped his cheeks to make sure he was conscious and whispered his name to make sure he could hear him. He made a low, husky groan.   
  
"What were you doing on the night of September 5th when you were caught in the Death Eater's circle out of command and out of your free will?"  
  
Sirius stirred and muttered in an expressionless voice, "To get revenge. I wanted to kill Peter Pettigrew who was Voldemort's right hand man. I blackmailed Avery to give me the death eater robes and mask. I threatened to gash his throat out in exchange for information. Avery would be performing the ceremony of the Dark Spirits that evening with Pettigrew. I was planning on sabotaging it. I stole your ingredients before I fled to their meeting place. I also used the polyjuice potion and Avery's body. I planned to create an explosion that would kill us all."  
  
"You wanted to die?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I hate him. I wanted to kill Peter Pettigrew. My hatred for him is stronger than death. He betrayed me. He betrayed James. He betrayed us all. He deserved to die. They all deserved to die. My life was inconsequential. My life has been wasted. It would make my death valuable."  
  
"I understand." Severus paused for a long, stony silence.  
  
He scrutinised the fallen, satin and serpentine form. He bent over the figure: hard in the eyes and with trembling heart and hand, he examined his sunken features, ran his fingers over his bloodied temple and tried to trace the silken, youthful features that he remembered so well as a boy. The beautiful softness of his hair had now become coarse and twisted, his careless expression had grown dark and vengeful, and the exuberant glow of his moon pale skin was sullen and grey.   
  
"What's happened to you?" he mouthed silently.  
  
The body stirred as if a soft, summer's breeze breathed through it, as if to whisper, 'I don't know...'   
  
"So you have not been or never will be associated with the Dark Side or the Dark Lord?"  
  
"No. I hate them all. They killed James and Lily. They make my godson suffer. I would rather die than join them. I've always hated them."  
  
"Do you hate me?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Why not?"  
"I cannot hate you. I love you."  
  
"You love me?" he blinked coldly, "Have you always loved me?"  
  
"Yes. From the moment you laughed at my hair and called me clumsy, I loved you. You hexed me, pinched my throat and slashed my arms, teased my honest face, scratched me with your nails, ridiculed me, ignored me and still I loved you. I thought I hated you with as much passion as I loved you. Yet that dissipated and I turned the hatred towards myself. I could barely stand to be in the same room as you. You inflicted me with such pain and scorn and hatred that I had to destroy you. I had to be free."  
  
"You tried to kill me," he murmured morbidly.   
  
"Yes. I had no choice."  
  
"Do you still love me?"  
  
"Yes."   
  
"I am cruel, pretentious, nasty...Why do you still love me?"  
  
A strange, serene and happy grin crossed his face. "I love you because you are enigmatic, beautiful and complex beyond all worldly wonders!"  
  
"Why do you still love me?" Severus urged a little more forcefully.  
  
"I love you because you are brighter than the stars yet darker than the night! I love you because you are stronger than the Sun and transcend the boundaries of life itself. The way you look at me, the way you make me feel sends shivers down my spine like fleets of snow and I feel alive. You make me feel real. You make me worth something again and I love you for it. I love you because you are different. You don't treat me like a god and you don't treat me like an inferior. You treat me as an equal and as you always have."  
  
Severus stayed silent and bowed his head with suppressed fervor. He was neither triumphant nor bitter but melancholy and subdued. He had known the answers, he knew them as well as his own beating pulse, but they were always his own. The potion would be wearing off soon and he had no desire to ask anything beyond the unsaid. His spirit was already too stirred and troubled to take anymore. This was his enemy's heart lying straight before him. His vengeance, his hatred, his vigour was extinguished and yet here he was at his most truthful.   
  
He stroked his long hair away from his face and smiled the smallest of smiles. As he kissed the still and stiff figure, his eyes alit with an untold ecstasy and fire surged through them both. Sirius launched from his supine position: angered, furious and repulsed and staggered to his feet with disgust.   
  
"I know what the fuck the asked me, Severus! You're sick and that potion's not as strong as you think it is... It was all lies! All lies! I don't love you! I hate you! I suppose you're done with me now!"  
  
A violent, rush of hatred afflicted his black, glittering eyes and Severus leapt to his feet with indignant haste. Nobody spoke to him like that. That bastard, that hound, that contemptuous git that he was! He clenched his fists fast, tight and fiercely flung himself away from Sirius, his cloak whipping sharply behind him.   
  
"GET OUT!" he yelled, unable to contain his hurt pride.   
  
He could barely look at him in the eye with all the flurried emotions that whirred through his soul. It hurt and pained him till he could hardly breathe, but he suppressed it. He suppressed it all like his father had told him to do, like all the Slytherins had told him to. No, love should be banished; love should be strangled and throttled, burnt and blistered before it could reach his heart. How could one moment of weakness made him so foolish? My heart is made of stone, of earth, of steel; he chanted to himself, it was not made of vain and selfish emotions such as love!  
  
Sirius stood shaking; his whole face was kept in his eyes.   
  
"Severus..." he began in a small, soft tone, "I..."  
  
He couldn't complete his sentence before bowing his head down in frustration and looking helpless. He didn't know how to talk about his feelings. He could fight in battles, he could catch, kill, steal and invent the most ingenious of creations, but he couldn't make simple conversation. He laughed bitterly and scorned himself for his own inability to communicate what he really felt. Instead, he grew more furious. At his own ineptitude, he grew frustrated and tried to conceal it with fury.  
  
"You're one sick bastard, Snape!"   
  
With that, he passionately stormed out of the room and left a deafening silence behind him.   
***  
  
To be continued... Please review. 


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